A Little Bird Told Me…. Every Now and Then I Come Across Some Interesting Questions and Comments About Apps Being Used for Special Ed
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A little bird told me…. Every now and then I come across some interesting questions and comments about apps being used for Special Ed. I have pasted those comments below into a somewhat organized fashion; trying to group them wherever possible. I have not verified any of the comments. Also a number of these will not work within the district firewalls, so please test or ask before assuming it will work. Looking for an app where a photo can be taken of a document and it could be read back to the user? I am just wondering if there is an app that would be similar in function to the Intel Reader. Suggestion: • Text Detective is one of the more accurate. I recommend using these apps with the camera mount, such as the "in your face "amount available from Amazon. • Zoom Text now has some good APPs . Compiling portfolio of student work and home-school communication: I am looking for an iPad app that will help facilitate communication between school and home...to replace a planner. Teachers and parents would like to be able to have a section for notes, reminders, photos, videos, schedule, etc. to let the other know how the day or evening went...a "Here's what I did today" so parents and teachers can ask the student questions to generate conversation and keep up on announcements and such. I've seen Wikis that teachers have set up for students where parents can login to the account and see all this, but was curious if anyone knew of an app. Thanks for the help! • Book Creator is a wicked app!! It has everything I needed, thanks! I love that it supports video and that I can make audio hotspots that hold up when I export the book to iBooks. It obviously has many other great features to use it across the school day, too, so they aren't just learning one app for one purpose. • Visual Impact; I believe it's made as a cognitive support but I think it would suit your purpose. It is on the pricer side. $49 • Pictello !! 18.99 Our Brownies and guides can almost all make a story about an activity as we are doing it. This creates a record for our unit of what we did as a group, while creating a resource for our girls with disabilities to share what they did individually . • I'd try Class Dojo. It's an app and a website. Easy to use and free. “ We've been looking at several apps but haven't found the perfect one. I'm very interested in any suggestions: Explain Everything lets you import photos, write notes, jot reminders, etc. You can photograph documents like a schedule, etc. You can leave an audio message. But it doesn't let you import video. However, if each slide has audio, it plays it back like a video, which my daughter seems to enjoy. Book Creator lets you write stories with text, audio, pictures and videos but has been more like a book than a running conversation between us and the school team, if that makes sense. Several people have suggested Evernote and Notability but again, neither one includes videos (as far as I can tell). Go Talk NOW is an AAC app that incorporates video. We've been messing around with a page where each cell has an auditory prompt like "Ask me what I did this weekend!" or "see what we did in science!" and then it links to video or a visual scene display with audio hotspots. What I like about Go Talk NOW is that its VERY easy to quickly edit on the fly. You can record reminder messages and the like but it isn't ideal for that kind of thing. However, the built-in reminder app in the iPad is really helpful for that. We've also been experimenting with a separate remnant/conversation book that might be more effective for trying to talk with our daughter about her day and be a more social conversation tool.” ERIN , MOM TO MAGGIE , AGE 9, ANGELMAN SYNDROME Word Prediction: • Goal: increasing expressive language - CAS (Childhood Apraxia of Speech) • Verbally - Both free & premium versions have "smart" word predictions. Abilipad - is the default word processing app in my daughter's grade 4/5 class. Kids who need the extra support from text prediction, spellcheck, and customized keyboards with symbols or other supports get it. Kids who don't need the support still love the TTS feature. Self contained - 19.99 • Ktype Free • Typo: Word prediction - 14.99 Communications Apps: • TouchChat HD. - communication aps that allow 1-4 large pictures per screen • GoTalk NOW • SoundingBoard, it STAFF APPS: • ATeval2go –SETT Framework, WATI $39 Reading • iBooks free • Goodreader 4.99 Writing o Office2HD 9.99 o Type on Pdf Mid version 2.99 o iA Writer - Write without distraction. That’s the whole idea behind iA Writer, which first appeared on the Mac and has since made its way to both the iPad (and very recently, the iPhone). If you’re looking for a writing app that has very little in the way of customization, then this is the app for you. It’s pleasant on the eyes and keeps you focused on the task at hand – writing. And it syncs across platforms using either Dropbox or iCloud, so you can write on whatever platforms you have ia Writer installed on. That’s pretty darn seamless. o Simplenote - Simplenote is a fantastic app that will allow you to do the same in terms of syncing that iA Writer does. But Simplenote is generally viewed as an app used for notetaking more than writing. Still, with its ubiquitous nature and cross-platform capabilities, Simplenote is among the best at letting you get the words out of your head and onto the screen. Any screen. o Writing Kit - Writing Kit may not look as pretty as iA Writer, but it has a ton of bells and whistles built right in. The app has a browser integrated right within the app, allowing for research and quick linking where needed. It also allows for export into a variety of apps, including Things and OmniFocus – a great boon for the writers out there who happen to be right into productivity as well (ahem). The fact that Writing Kit allows writers to use Markdown syntax (as does ia Writer – and Simplenote when you bring something like nvALT into the mix), syncs to Dropbox and features a plethora of options for users puts it as a bit of a dark horse on this list. But a very worthy addition all the same. o PlainText - If you’re looking for something clean and simple, PlainText has got you covered. It’s not as feature-rich or as pretty to look at as some of the others on this list, but it does what it is supposed to do: help you get writing done. The team behind it also developed the very populat WriteRoom (Hog Bay Software), so they’ve got experience in this realm. It does allow for syncing via Dropbox and is perhaps the most frictionless app on this list because of its stripped-down nature. o Byword - The new kid on the iOS block, Byword has been around on the Mac for some time. Now available for both the iPhone and iPad, it brings much of what the Mac app had to the mobile platform. Featuring Markdown support, syncing in the cloud, and an interface that balances feature set, focus and function, Byword already makes this list based on my limited time with it. Those using Byword on the Mac should jump into using it on the iPad to create a continuum in their writing workflow, and the consistency across all platforms is what makes this one a winner in my books during my brief look at it for the iPad. Notetaking (PDF EDITORS) Audiomemo .99 PaperPort Notes free Notability .99 “Notability is a great app to type into as well as write into (use a long iPad stylus) and does not create the text boxes. It can also isolate and magnify line by line, making it more manageable to do a math worksheet.” Infinote 2.99 PDF NOTES FREE FOR IPAD Notability $1.99 PlainText – Dropbox text editing GoodReader - super-robust PDF reader with advanced reading, annotating, markup and highlighting capabilities, excellent file manager, TXT file reader and editor, audio/video player, Safari-like viewer for MS Office and iWorks files. Connoisseur PDF app has TTS, Ability to bookmark, add notes, convert photos/ text to PDF, has OCR ... PDFEXPERT: PDF Expert - Fill Forms "PDF Expert lets you type directly on to a PDF without the need to create a textbox: it’s very similar to the Adobe Reader typewriter tool on a Mac or PC. PDF Expert also lets you type answers into form fields on the PDF and with iOS6, the keyboard has buttons to move to the next and the previous form field. Other nice features with PDF Expert are the drawing tools, text markups, and sticky notes, stamps (you can stamp a photo or image from your library). I personally find the interface simpler and more intuitive than iAnnotate. It’s the app I recommend for use with the Scottish digital exam papers (see http://www.adapteddigitalexams.org.uk/Blog/Search-Results/index.php ). "The only missing feature, for me, is that Speak Selection doesn’t work so there is no easy way to read the text as well as answer questions or respond." OCR/Image to Text Conversion Imagetotext-OCR(MS)free Geniusscan: (HS) free OCR imagetotext.